Ár Ré leadership election, 4120
A leadership election for Ár Ré was called in 4120 to challenge then incumbent leader Tauren Ó Marcaigh. A total of 86,252 ballots were cast. Background In the recently held July 4119 elections, under Tauren Ó Marcaigh's leadership, the party achieved its worst electoral result to date. Ár Ré only secured 50 seats in the General Assembly, a loss of 43 seats from 4116 and less than the 72 seats it achieved in its first ever election. Ár Ré was virtually wiped out in its previous stronghold of Merkan, achieving only 0.05% of the electoral vote - Marcaigh thus lost her parliamentary seat in the General Assembly. Ár Ré also had only two seats in the bellwether province of Uwakah, and saw its plurality in its homebase, Nuchtmark, dissipated to only 30 seats. In total, the party placed seventh out of the eight parties contesting in the general election. Marcaigh also came dead last in the presidential election out of six contenders, with only 7.64% of the vote, the lowest ever achieved. The reasons for Ár Ré's astronomical defeat in the polls are numerous. Many are attributed to Marcaigh's pivot to nationalist, pro-Kilani issues, which alienated Luthori voters in traditional strongholds of the country. She took Merkan for granted and assumed it would vote for a party whose leader was based there - hence, almost no campaigning was done in the province and the party was practically invisible. Coupled with the rise of insurgent parties and a mediocre record in the last General Assembly, Ár Ré lost popularity among both swing voters and its traditional supporters. Marcaigh's leadership came into question when several backbenchers rebelled against some bills she spearheaded in the new General Assembly. Talks of a leadership challenge surfaced, and prominent Ár Ré politicians, like Minato Monata and April McConaughey, openly dissented to Marcaigh's leadership style. Even the first leader of Ár Ré, Alexander Magnum III, openly criticised Marcaigh and warned of a "severe, irreconcilable split" within the party. By the party's revised Constitution, any sitting member of the General Assembly or Senate could trigger a leadership challenge given that he/she has proven to have the support of both parliamentary colleagues and the membership base. Witherham Shaw, a backbencher member of the General Assembly representing the province of Nuchtmark, presented a petition of 15,000 signatures representing the party membership to the Executive and Internal Elections Committee, seeking a leadership challenge. This request was granted on January 21. Procedure As this was the first leadership challenge against an incumbent in Ár Ré's history, the rules regarding this particular election were not clearly defined. The Constitution did not specify what steps were to be taken when such a scenario occurred. Hence, the procedure for this election was similar to any other leadership election where the incumbent was not standing - Tauren Ó Marcaigh thus had to nominate herself as a candidate for the leadership election, even though she would simultaneously be heading the party and overseeing the election. There were calls for concern that a conflict of interest may arise, but this was dismissed by the Internal Elections Committee, who promised impartiality in the running of the election. Nominations were to close a month after the leadership challenge was triggered, that is, February the 21st. As only two candidates had registered by the deadline (Witherham Shaw, the GAM who filed the leadership challenge, eventually withdrew), a motion was passed by the Internal Elections Committee to push forward the date of the ballot to March the 25th. As such, there was only one month of campaigning available to the candidates, the shortest in Ár Ré electoral history. Candidates The initial two candidates to announce that they were running in the leadership election were Witherham Shaw, on January 21 (the same day his request for a leadership election was granted), and Tauren Ó Marcaigh, the incumbent leader, on January 26. Lance O'Neil, a member of the General Assembly for the province of Dirguzia, also registered in the leadership election on February 8. As support drifted from Shaw to O'Neil, Shaw announced his withdrawal from the leadership election on February 20. However, as the electoral registrar and ballots had already been finalised, Shaw could not be removed from much of the electoral material published by the Internal Elections Committee, hence he was remarked as "Withdrawn" on all electoral ballots. Campaign Results